The use of spreadsheet applications for data analysis has become prevalent. Further, as more and more businesses depend upon these applications for complex data computation, the need for faster and more efficient processing of these applications has become desirable. Microsoft Excel™ is an example of such a spreadsheet application. It is typical in spreadsheet applications for a formula in one cell, referred to as a “dependent” formula, to depend upon the contents of or a formula in another cell, referred to as a “supporting” formula. When the contents of a cell are changed, a recalculation (“recalc”) operation may be triggered, in which a program thread is used to iterate through the formulas and recalc any formulas requiring recalculation based on these changes. The processing time for computation operations may be reduced in speed, if not paused altogether for a significant period of time, when a recalc program thread confronts a formula dependent upon a supporting formula which has yet to be calculated. Even where multiple processors, or multiple program threads, are employed in such applications, the performance speed of the calculations and recalcs may not be improved where at least one of the processors is unable to complete a calculation or recalc while waiting for a supporting formula to be computed. The problem is exacerbated as the number of dependent formulas in the spreadsheet application increases.
Although specific problems have been addressed in this Background, this disclosure is not intended in any way to be limited to solving those specific problems.